I remember going to Rome sometime in the 1970s 

I remember going to Rome sometime in the 1970s. It may have been my very first visit. We were only there for a couple of days, before moving on to somewhere else. I don’t recall what John was doing – probably drinking Italian beer and reading an English newspaper – but I’d gone wandering off on my own, and came out into one of the big piazzas, and just strolled into a church to have a look around.

It was a beautiful place. And so utterly different from anything I’d seen before, with all this incredible gilding and ornamentation … amid a rather grand dilapidation. Anyway, after I’d stood and looked up at the ceiling for a couple of minutes I had a walk around and found this magnificent painting. A huge, great thing it was. And I was still standing there gawping at it when some old lady came along and stood beside me. After a little while she said something to me. Unfortunately, my Italian was close to non-existent. She was pointing and nattering away, and for all I knew was casting some ancient Italian curse on me.

I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the situation – didn’t have a clue what I’d done to upset her. And the more I tried to explain that I didn’t understand her, the more agitated she became. Until, finally, she grabbed my hand and prised apart my fingers. I was thinking, Oh my God, now the crazy old witch is going to read my palm, and tell me what a miserable life I’ve got stretched out before me. Or how I’m going to get knocked down by a horse before I’ve even reached my prime.

Then she placed a coin in my hand. And pointed to the wall just below the painting. Well, I was still completely baffled. Still dithering and flapping. But she kept on pointing, until I bent over and saw a metal box on the wall, with a little slot in the top. So I took the coin she’d given me and popped it in, and the moment it clunked inside, the whole wall lit up. It was almost blinding. And the painting that I’d just been squinting at was suddenly bathed in light.

I’ve forgotten which painting it was now, but there’s every chance that it was a Caravaggio. I’d like it to have been a Caravaggio. Some writhing, reaching tangle of limbs and bodies. Full of blood and lust and anger. Or an apostle with dirt on his feet and down his fingernails. One of the ones that landed him in all sorts of hot water. Whatever it was, having the light suddenly come flooding onto it made it feel like a revelation. An illumination, in both senses of the word.

I’m sure that the principal reason for having a coin-operated light above a painting, as I soon discovered they have in churches right across Rome and Italy, is to protect such priceless works of art from unnecessary exposure, as well as generating a little money along the way. But it must have occurred to someone, at some time or other, that the actual mechanics allow the viewer to have their own personal epiphany. And I must say that I, for one, truly appreciated it.